RIGHTS >Case opened against ‘judges and prosecutors’ of KCK

Some lawyers protest the trial of 36 lawyers as part of the KCK case. AA photo

A case was opened July 18 against 30 people accused of judging citizens on the so-called “justice commission” run by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) in the Yüksekova district of the southeastern province of Hakkari.

Van’s deputy chief public prosecutor has completed an investigation into the district organization, which adjudicated conflicts between individuals, and those who served on the so-called “justice commission” of the PKK and KCK in Yüksekova. A 750-page indictment filed by the deputy chief prosecutor has resulted in a case being opened in Van’s 4th Court for Serious Crimes against 30 people who served as “judges and prosecutors” on the KCK “justice commission,” on charges of “leading an armed terrorist organization,” and “being [members] of an armed terrorist organization.”

The KCK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the Court of Appeal, is a state organization parallel to the Turkish Republic, the indictment reads. The indictment also refers to documents including telephone conversations recorded after the court decision, secret witness statements, and signatures regarded as so-called “court” decisions. The defendants in the case served as judges and prosecutors in the solution of legal problems such as the “abduction of girls, feuds, debt actions, threats, injury, and property conflicts,” according to the indictment. The defendants also brought the parties to cases together, appealed to expert opinion and made legal decisions.

The “judges” made debtors sign indentures by force, the indictment says. The Democratic Patriotic Youth (DYG), the youth branch of the PKK and KCK, assumed duty as “armed force units” and implemented methods such as “threatening, injuring or abducting” those who objected, according to the indictment. The defendants referred to each other as “your honor,” the indictment alleges. Telephone conversations used as evidence in the indictment cite defendants making statements such as: “I am in the party now, we are on trial,” “The decision was sent two days ago; he went to Kandil.” ‘Kurdish row’The “Kurdish row” continued in the third round of hearings in the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), in which 36 lawyers held under arrest as part of the KCK probe are being tried. Chief Judge Mehmet Ekinci silenced jailed suspects Emran Emekçi and Cemal Demir when they began entering their pleas in Kurdish. The sentence “Because they [the suspects] were speaking Kurdish, what they said was not understood” was recorded in the court’s minutes.